When Was The United States Discovered?

The United States, often referred to as a part of the New World, was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492. He and his crew saw first came across the land, which is known as Bahamas on 3 August 1492. The new land was first claimed by the Spanish, later the French laid their claim on the territory which was followed by the Dutch. It were the English, however, who finally managed to have an explicit control over the area during the last decades of the 17th century.

The United States has an area of approximately 9,826,675 square kilometers, which makes it the third largest nation on the planet. The United States, which gained her freedom from Britain on 4 July, 1776 was much smaller. The rest of the territory was occupied either by force or bought by successive US governments in the following years. The population is about 300 million and the GDP is more than US $14 trillion, which makes it the richest nation on Earth.About 79 percent of the population is White and the African-Americans form the biggest minority group with 15 percent of the population. English and Spanish are the two most spoken languages; the first is spoken by around 80 percent of the population while the latter is the native language of about 12 percent people in the United States. The country has one of the finest educational institutions in the world and the one of the highest crime rates. The constitution gave equal legal rights to the African-American population only in the 1960s: before that, they were marginalized at almost all levels.